Why Jeff Bezos is looking to unload up to $5B worth of Amazon shares

May 2, 2025

Jeff Bezos will offload up to 25 million Amazon shares, according to a new Securities and Exchange Commission filing.

Amazon said Friday in its quarterly report filed with the SEC that its billionaire founder adopted a trading plan “intended to satisfy Rule 10b5-1(c)” early last month to part ways with up to that many shares. 

The 25 million Amazon shares had a value of over $4.7 billion as of Friday morning. 

The plan enables Bezos, who founded Amazon more than three decades ago and serves as the company’s executive chair, to sell the shares “over a period ending on May 29, 2026, subject to certain conditions,” per the quarterly report.

A separate SEC filing indicated Bezos directly owned over 909.4 million shares of the e-commerce giant as of March 3. 

The Amazon founder has taken up trading plans to sell Amazon shares in various instances in the past. 

Under one of the prior ones he adopted, he shed 50 million shares through multiple rounds of sales over several weeks in February 2024, fetching over $8.5 billion.


Jeff Bezos
Jeff Bezos is looking to sell 25 million Amazon shares, which had a value of over $4.7 billion as of Friday morning.  Getty Images

Bezos derives a major portion of his 12-figure net worth from his Amazon stake.  

The Amazon founder had a personal fortune of $205.4 billion as of Friday morning by Forbes’ measure. With that figure, he ranked as the second-richest person in the world, surpassed only by Tesla CEO Elon Musk.


Amazon logistics center in Spain.
The Amazon founder had a personal fortune of $205.4 billion according to Forbes’ measure, surpassed only by Tesla CEO Elon Musk. REUTERS

Bezos is also the owner of The Washington Post and created Blue Origin.

 

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